


Stolen Moments

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:11:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13413900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: The mystery of Richard Strand pulls at her, enticing her along like a cat with a string. This man, this accidental treasure of a resource, could tease her down a path from which she may never return.What reporter in her right mind could turn down a lead like that?...Stolen moments between Alex Reagan and Richard Strand over the course of the series, ending with the fateful, final decision.





	Stolen Moments

Alex lays in bed, her comforter kicked away from her body, overheated after another nightmare. Beside her, Strand lays on his side, curled into himself, his arms held near his stomach. His breath comes soft and slow, hitching every so often in murmured distress. His brows draw downward. He shifts, twisting the sheets around his legs. 

Alex reaches out to smooth the lines worried around his eyes. She cups the side of his face and brushes his hair back from his face until he settles into an easier sleep.

Another stolen moment in a series of stolen moments.

 

She describes him as handsome to her audience. As a tall, thin man with cool blue eyes and a wry smile. Underneath all of that, however, lies something more. 

The mystery of Richard Strand pulls at her, enticing her along like a cat with a string. This man, this accidental treasure of a resource, could tease her down a path from which she may never return.

What reporter in her right mind could turn down a lead like that?

 

Their second meeting, Alex suggests they meet for drinks—a transparent scheme to get to know more about him, specifically to know more about his Black Tapes. He looks at her, his brow raised and his lips twisted into a wry, knowing smile. He suggests a local bar, not too far from his office.

At the end of the night, tipsy after two beers, Alex leads him up to her hotel room. She drags him down by the lapels of his suit for a bruising kiss. He pushes her against the wall, deftly slides her panties out of her way, and pounds into her with the desperation of a man who hasn’t connected with another person for a very long time.

The first of their stolen moments.

And, considering their current situation, certainly not the last.

 

Rain falls steadily over Seattle when Strand visits Alex at the offices of Pacific Northwest Stories. She hands him a towel and he dries himself off while they tiptoe around the subject of his Black Tapes, her podcast, and the role his past has to play in it. He dodges her questions inelegantly and retreats from her office, throwing the towel down, almost as an afterthought, letting the door slam behind him.

Alex gives herself a moment to digest. She sighs and shoves herself away from her desk, intent on brewing a strong cup of coffee, the metaphor of the towel still lying on her floor not lost to her. She stops short, only having gotten as far as the door.

Strand leans against the wall outside her office, his face a mixture of pain and defiance, like an injured animal daring someone to reach out.

She takes his arm and pulls him into an empty recording studio. She flips the ‘On Air’ switch and locks the door behind her.

He opens his mouth, but before he can say a word, Alex wraps her arm around the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss. She swallows his sound of surprise and chases it with a swipe of her tongue. She cups him through his slacks and squeezes.

He gasps and Alex uses the opportunity to delve into his mouth to taste him. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, unsure of what to do, while Alex’s hands unbuckle the belt at his waist. She pops the button on his slacks and coaxes the zipper downard.

The soundproofing will dampen most of the noise, but still Alex muffles his moan when her hand slides past the barrier of his boxer briefs. She kisses him and works him at the same time, until he’s hot and hard and heavy in her hand. Alex drops to her knees and, with a wicked grin, takes him in her mouth.

One of his hands grips her shoulder while the other cards through her hair. He smiles and it’s so gentle, so unexpectedly sweet, Alex pauses.

She blinks, surprised by the fluttering of her heart behind her ribcage.

“Alex?” He whispers. Reverent almost. His hand cups the back of her head. Not to urge her to continue, but in question, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin behind her ear.

Alex shakes her head and swallows him down.

 

Three months crawl by without any word from Strand. Fed up with the slow, frustrating lack of momentum in her story, fed up as well with the worry simmering in the pit of her stomach, Alex catches a flight to Chicago. 

Ruby, Strand’s assistant, stops Alex before she can reach Strand’s office. Alex has spoken to her on the phone a few times, but this is the first time Alex meets her in person. Ruby flips her hair out of her face—only for it to fall back into her eyes—and deflects each of Alex’s questions.

Alex’s instincts scream at her to stop, but as soon as Ruby steps away from Strand’s office, Alex opens the door and slips through.

Maps and photocopies of newspaper articles and printed Wikipedia pages have been pasted along one wall, each document tied to a location on the map with strands of multicolored string. Strand’s desk, his floor, his table, even the chairs he reserves for guests, play host to mountains of books, piled precariously high. Some lay open, while others are bookmarked with hundreds of yellow sticky notes. Some have covers lined so thick with dust, Alex can barely make out the title.

The man himself stands in the center of it all. Too thin, his gaunt face hidden behind weeks’ growth of beard. Sweatpants hang low on his hips. A faded flannel barely hides the wear of the T-shirt underneath, clearly worn for days without a wash.

It doesn’t take an investigative reporter to deduce the meaning behind the nest of pillows and blankets pushed back against a bookshelf housing rows of gleaming, white VHS cases.

Ruby returns with a squawk of protest, but Alex has eyes only for Strand. He, too, can barely look away. He reassures Ruby, who leaves in a huff. He urges Alex to sit, only to startle at the sight of his own desk. He scratches at the back of his neck, only now realizing the ruination of the space around him. 

He moves the smallest pile of books and, again, offers her a place to sit.

Alex sits.

“I need your help,” he says.

He tells her his secret. How he and his family have been stalked, now and in the past. How his stalkers must have had something to do with Coralee’s disappearance. How she must still be in danger if she hasn’t made contact with him for the last twenty years. How he fears for his child’s safety, even with twenty years’ estrangement to distance her from him, to protect her.

“You and I, we have a…” he says, trailing off with a frown, unable to put a name to it.

_Connection_. The word springs into her mind as if he put it there himself. “Yeah.”

She stands, pacing as much as she can in the disaster area of his office, in an attempt to think.

He follows her. And when Alex doesn’t turn around, his hands settle—hesitant, always so hesitant, as if he’s still unsure she’ll accept his touch, even having been inside of her on more than one occasion—on her waist.

Alex pulls him closer, making him bend like a question mark over her, until his arms wrap around her middle and his forehead presses into the crook of her shoulder.

“Please,” he says. 

The word falls from his lips, heavy with the weight of his exhaustion.

What does he mean for her to say? To agree to help him, to dive even further into the sea of mystery that is his life? Or to refuse him, to take the fatal step back, out of his life, away from the danger following at his heels?

She’s never once turned her back on a challenge. Why start now?

“Okay,” Alex says. 

He sighs, his breath tickling her skin. His lips chase after it, soft and warm. His tongue darts out to taste her and Alex tilts her head, giving him better access. He nibbles up the column of her throat while one hand cups her breast. She gasps when he catches the shell of her ear between his teeth.

She tries to turn, but he holds her fast against him. The hard length of him presses against her ass and Alex wriggles, teasing him.

Strand ducks his head and breathes a laugh into her shoulder. He bucks against her, distracting her as his free hand finds its way to the button of her jeans. He pops it and, barely stopping to pull down the zipper, dips his hand inside.

He teases her through the cotton of her panties, until the fabric is soaked. Alex pants, her knees weak, the only thing holding her up the strong arm around her middle. He shifts her panties to the side and slips one long finger along the seam of her sex, before sliding it inside her.

Alex bites back a moan. Ruby sits just on the other side of the door to Strand’s office. Alex settles for gripping his arm, her nails digging into his flannel. 

Strand rakes his teeth over the sensitive skin just behind her ear as he adds a second finger, thrusting both inside until Alex keens with need. 

She hisses when his thumb circles her clit, a shock of pleasure which nearly sends her tumbling over the edge. He works her expertly, however, drawing it out, until Alex sobs his name.

“Alex,” he says. 

The desire, the desperation, in his voice sends her crashing over the edge. Her orgasm washes over her, through her, stripping her of everything but her pleasure. She bites down on her lip—hard—to keep herself from crying out.

He works her through her climax until she’s twitching with overstimulation, until her knees are too weak to hold herself up.

“Fuck,” she says, breathless, barely able to form coherent words.

Strand kisses the place behind her ear in reply. He’s still hard, pressed against her through the fabric of his sweatpants. When she reaches back to cup him, he groans. But before she can do anything to return the favor, he steps backwards, his arms releasing her from his hold.

He takes a breath and struggles to regain some of his old composure. “I—“

He motions for her to do up her jeans. Alex fumbles with the zipper, hurt, but the reason why becomes clear when someone knocks on the door to his office.

Strand adjusts himself. And then blanches at the telltale damp of pre-come staining his sweatpants. He moves behind his desk and falls into his chair. “Come in.”

Ruby swings the door open. While she addresses Strand, her eyes never leave Alex. As if it’s Alex’s fault Strand and his office look the way they do. “You wanted this report?”

“Ah. Yes. Thank you, Ruby. You can—“

“I’ll just put it here, with the rest of the fire.”

Ruby places the folder down on a stack and turns on her heel. The door doesn’t quite slam on her way out, but the sound of it clicking shut makes her objection to Alex’s presence clear.

“She doesn’t approve of me,” Alex says.

“She doesn’t approve of most things,” Strand says.

“Except for the IT Crowd.”

Strand’s brows draw down, adorably bewildered. “The what?”

Alex laughs.

 

Strand sits across from her at their table at Panera Bread, fidgeting with the soup and sandwich Alex insisted he order.

He’s deteriorated in the time since she saw him last, worse, somehow, than when she found him amidst the disaster zone of his office in Chicago. He’s put himself together for the sake of his coming to the PNWS offices. Cleaned himself up, put on jeans instead of ratty sweatpants. But it isn’t strictly his appearance. Not the rail thinness of his body after neglecting to eat. Not the disarray of overgrown hair after raking his fingers through it. It’s something else. Like he’s unravelling at the edges.

The glint of mania in his eyes sets Alex on edge.

“Eat,” she says. 

Strand hesitates before dunking his spoon into his soup. His eyes close and his shoulders slump as he tastes it. Immediately, he shovels up another mouthful, and another, until his spoon is scraping the edges of the bowl. With the same enthusiasm, he tears into his sandwich, until that too, disappears from his plate.

He blinks, surprised to find the tray in front of him empty.

“Good?” Alex asks. Her salad sits in front of her, only halfway finished.

“I...forgot what food tasted like,” he says.

“Way better than the ‘bar of some kind’ you had earlier, I’m sure.”

He nods, sitting back against the booth. The fine tremors in his hands have stopped.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

He turns his head away in answer.

“You almost committed a crime. You do know that, right? Impersonating law enforcement is a crime.”

His lips thin into a frown, the only sign he’s listening.

“You need to be smarter about this. You know as well as I do you won’t get anywhere if you’re in jail.”

“What do you propose I do?” Under the murmur of diners, his face still turned away from her, Alex barely catches his question.

“Go back to your hotel. Get some sleep—real sleep. Take something if you have to, but you _need_ to sleep. Then we can work on a strategy.”

He licks his lips. “We?”

“I told you I would help you. You can’t possibly think I would let you do this alone.”

He opens his mouth before shutting it with click.

Alex sighs. 

He did. Of course, he did. 

She reaches out across the table, leaving her hand lying palm up. He places his hand over hers. 

Alex takes it and squeezes.

 

Maddie Frank’s body swings from an orange extension cord. 

Her auburn curls cascade down the back of her satin nightgown, glossy in the moonlight streaming in from Alex’s bedroom window. Her toes brush Alex’s comforter as she rotates, like the slow pirouette of a plastic ballerina, dancing within a discordant music box.

Alex sits up with a scream.

Without thinking, without checking to make sure Maddie Frank’s body actually hangs from her ceiling, her neck snapped back at an unnatural angle, her nightgown stained with urine and other unmentionable fluids, Alex grabs for her phone.

The phone rings three times before the lateness of the hour hits her. The alarm clock on the table beside her reads sometime after three in the morning. But her heart beats against her ribcage like a caged animal, and her eyes burn with exhaustion, and unshed tears threaten to fall from her lashes. Social etiquette can take a flying leap from her balcony.

She needs to hear his voice. Deep, rumbling, half-annoyed, half-amused at the gullibility of the world around him. Calm. Rational. Unafraid of visions of bodies hanging from the ceiling. 

He answers on the fourth ring. “Alex?”

“Richard.”

He waits for her to speak.

No words come to her. Now she has him on the phone, what can she possibly say to him? How can she convey the sheer terror still echoing in her veins?

He sighs. “I heard what happened with the Franks woman.”

Alex remains silent, unable to push the image of the bloodstained room from her mind. From the slow sway of the body hanging from the rafters. From the creeping stench of decay.

“Alex?”

“I saw her,” Alex pushes the words out, beyond the barrier of her teeth.

“That...must have been traumatic.”

“No,” Alex says, shaking her head, even if he can’t see it. “Here. In my apartment. She was—She was hanging over my bed.”

Nothing. For a long moment, nothing. Nothing except the soft rustle of his breath against the receiver.

“Richard?”

“Nightmares aren’t uncom—“

“No,” Alex says. “Please. I know. I know it’s my brain trying to make sense of what I saw in that apartment. I know it’s all just apophenia, or whatever. Please. Just talk to me.”

“What...would you like to talk about?”

“Anything. Tell me about when you were a kid. Or one of your cases. The white tape cases. Just. Something.”

Silence.

“When Charlie was six, I taught her to ride a bike.” Strand pauses. “She didn’t want training wheels. She thought she was too big for them.”

Alex sits back against her headboard. She presses the phone to her ear, relaxing her white-knuckled grip.

“I held the bike while she climbed onto the seat. She wiggled around, getting herself comfortable. She looked at me and smiled—gap-toothed, at the time. She said, ‘Come on, Dad. Let’s go.’”

The nostalgia in his voice cuts through her fear. Alex tries to picture it—a younger Strand with his little girl, the joy of Charlie on her bike, the safety she must have felt with her father there to hold her up. 

“She took off, pedaling as fast as her little legs would go. I ran with her until she stopped wobbling. She was down the street before she realized I let go.”

“She was a natural,” Alex guesses.

Strand laughs. “Not quite, I’m afraid. She turned around and beamed when she saw me. She laughed and waved, not watching the road. She crashed, right into a mailbox.”

“Oh no.”

“I ran over. I was concerned when she didn’t get up right away. Her head was bowed, her shoulders shaking. When I got closer, however, I realized she wasn't crying. She was laughing. She said, ‘Dad! Did you see me? Did you see me? Let’s do it again.’”

“Did you do it again?”

“We did. Over and over again until...until Coralee called us in for dinner.”

Alex wriggles back down on her bed. She pulls the comforter over her, leaving only her head and her hand—still holding the phone to her ear, but much less like a lifeline—exposed. “That sounds nice. Really nice.”

“It was. When circumstances become...difficult, I think about that day.”

“When you were happy. With your family.”

The phone snuffles in her ear. Is Strand also in bed? Cocooned in his own nest of blankets? Or is he sitting at his desk, surrounded by his work, his research, unwilling to let himself rest?

“I’m not unhappy now.”

“But you aren’t happy.” Alex curls her toes beneath her comforter, distracting herself from the way her heart sinks into her belly.

“I—“

“It’s okay. You don’t have to lie. This thing between us? I really enjoy it. I _really_ enjoy it. But I’m not Coralee. I can’t expect to make you happy just because we fool around.”

The silence on the other end rings in her ears, deafening.

Alex closes her eyes. She braces herself for what will undoubtedly come next.

His voice comes out wooden, schooled to give away nothing. “I have to go.”

Alex smiles, bitter. She rolls her head, tangling her hair against the pillow. “Okay.”

“Get some rest, Alex.”

“You, too.”

The phone disconnects with a click.

 

The concierge at the desk of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada turns first to Strand and then to Alex. “I’m sorry. Separate rooms?”

Strand frowns. “Will that be a problem?”

“No,” the man says. “No. It’s just—I’m sorry, but I can only comp the price of one room, not two.”

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “I can pay for the second room.”

Strand’s frown deepens.

“I promise, I can handle it.” She rummages around in her messenger bag for the ratty wallet at the very bottom. She should be embarrassed when she pulls it out, for all of the rips and tears in it, but she can’t bring herself to care. It was a gift to her from her grandmother. “Call it a business expense.”

Nic will murder her when he sees the bill. It will be nothing but fast food on her P-Card for weeks after this.

“If you’re sure,” Strand says, voice low.

“Seriously. I’m an uninvited guest. If you insist on separate rooms, we’ll get separate rooms.”

Alex slides her card and her driver’s license across the counter. The man—Billy, says his name tag—takes it, sliding it slowly, carefully, to him, his brows drawn downward.

Alex waits as he clicks around on the computer, typing in her information.

“Your key,” Billy says, returning Alex’s cards along with a paper sleeve. “I upgraded you to a room with a view of the Harbor, no upcharge.” The sympathy in his voice grates on Alex’s already frayed nerves.

“Thank you,” she says. “I appreciate it.”

“The wifi password is in the sleeve with your room key. If you have any problems connecting, call down to the front. We’ll be happy to assist.”

“Thank you,” Alex says again. She hefts her messenger bag, heavy with a change of clothes, higher on her shoulder. 

“I’m going up to my room while you get squared away here,” she says to Strand. “I want to talk about what we found earlier, so don’t disappear.”

Strand presses his lips into a thin line. “Fine.”

Alex walks away, toward the elevator, Strand’s gaze hot on her back.

A queen size bed sits in the center of the room. Two chairs arranged neatly by the window form a small sitting area. The window indeed overlooks the Harbor.

Alex lets herself take in the general splendor of the room before falling back on the mattress, her feet barely scraping the floor.

It should be illegal for a mattress to be this comfortable.

She closes her eyes. Just for a second. Just to take few breaths before diving into the code left for Strand on the back of a grotesque Russian painting.

She startles awake at the knock on her door.

Alex checks her phone for the time. Eleven at night. 

She slept for an entire six hours. A miracle, considering her insomnia.

“Fuck,” she mutters. She wriggles off the bed, her clothing wrinkled, her hair a mess, and goes to the door.

Strand stands on the other side. His hand hangs in the air, poised to knock again. He drops it to his side. “Alex. Hello.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You wanted to discuss the painting. I called your phone, but it went straight to voicemail.”

Alex yawns. She steps back, allowing him to enter. “My phone doesn’t make international calls.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. She sits down on the bed. “Sorry. I meant to come find you. I can’t believe I slept this long.”

“How is it? Your insomnia?”

“About the same.”

Strand nods. His hands clench and unclench by his side, like he isn’t quite sure what to do with them. “I’m...sorry to hear that.”

Alex’s shoulders hitch with a single bitter breath of laughter. “You and me both.”

“Are you taking anything?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing really works. Nothing that doesn’t leave me in a daze during the day.”

Strand takes a step, but halts, his heel mid-strike. He frowns and returns to his stiff, statue-like position in the middle of the room. “I—May I?”

Alex shrugs.

Strand doesn’t move, his eyes even more uncertain than before.

Alex sighs. She rolls her eyes and pats the mattress to the right of her.

He sits, his back ramrod straight, his face turned forward, not looking at her.

They sit like that, stewing in their own awkwardness for several minutes. Until Strand relaxes. Until Alex laughs, breaking the last of the tension. She leans her head against his shoulder.

“I’m tired,” she says. “I shouldn’t be. I slept longer than—well, longer than I have in a while.”

“You’re suffering from sleep debt,” Strand says.

“Sounds ominous. Do I have to pay sleep taxes, as well?”

Strand laughs. “Ah. No. Sleep debt is the cumulative effect of chronic sleep deprivation.”

“So, I’ll need to pay off my debt before I stop feeling so tired?”

His body rumbles against her when he hums his affirmation.

“Damn.”

Strand’s arm pulls her in, holding her close against his side. Alex goes willingly.

“May I...stay?” Strand asks.

Alex pushes herself away from him, just enough to see his face. “I thought you wanted separate rooms. You _insisted_ we get separate rooms, actually.”

“I was angry,” Strand says.

“And you’re not angry now?”

“No.”

Alex tucks herself under his arm. “What if I’m angry with you?”

“Are you?”

“Sort of. You ran away. Again.”

Strand’s arm tenses around her, along with the long line of his body she’s pressed herself against. “I—“

“I get it,” Alex says. “I shared your secret with my listeners. You can be upset about that all you want. But we had an agreement. I could share what you told me as long as it directly affects the story.”

“It hardly—“

“Don’t give me that, Richard. You know it does. You, your family, Coralee, the Black Tapes—they’re _all_ connected.”

He doesn’t deny it. But he doesn’t give her any sign of agreement, either.

“I just need you to stop running away, okay? You asked for my help, but I can’t do this without you.”

He looks at her, worry swimming in his blue, blue eyes. “I can’t. I can’t put you in danger. I’m not equipped—“

Alex smiles, small and sad. “None of us are, Richard. But we keep going. No matter what. Because none of this stops until we get to the bottom of it.”

He stares at her. His eyes catch on her lips.

Alex licks at them instinctively.

Strand’s pupils go wide. He swallows. “I want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me.”

He dips down to press his lips to hers, warm and dry. His hand cups the side of her face. 

Alex breathes him in. How long has it been since she last kissed him? How long has it been since they last found comfort in the arms of the other?

Far, far too long.

Without breaking the kiss, Alex shifts beside Strand. She swings her leg over both of his, straddling him. Strand makes a sound of surprise, but his hands automatically come to rest on the swell of her ass, pressing her against the rapidly hardening length beneath his slacks.

Alex grips at the lapels of his jacket. She rolls her hips, the friction making Strand hiss.

Alex takes advantage of the distraction and bites down on his lower lip.

Strand groans.

“Fuck me,” Alex says. “Please.”

He stands. Alex wraps her legs around his hips as he turns and deposits her on the bed. He kisses the column of her throat, his teeth nipping at her skin, his tongue darting out to soothe the hurt. His hands work to pop the button on her jeans. He draws down the zipper. Alex lifts her hips and he hooks his fingers into the denim, catching on the lace band of her thong, and peels them away from her skin.

Alex lets him go when he draws away. His eyes are dark with lust, his hair a wreck after running her hands through the dark strands. He pulls her jeans the rest of the way free with a final tug. He tosses them away and turns back to Alex. 

Unable to wait, Alex wrestles her shirt over her head. She unhooks her bra and sends it sailing across the room to join the rest of her clothes.

Strand presses the heel of his hand against his erection, closing his eyes with the effort of keeping himself in control. 

“While I appreciate the return of the suit,” Alex says, “I think I’d really rather see it on the floor.”

Strand’s lips curl in a smile. The first Alex has seen in weeks. He shrugs out of his jacket, letting it pool at his feet. His fingers make quick work of the buttons at his wrists, followed by the placket at his chest. Both his shirt and the undershirt beneath follow his jacket on the floor. He toes out of his shoes and shucks himself out of his slacks. His boxer briefs are the last to join the pile.

Alex settles further up the bed and crooks her finger at him to follow. He crawls up Alex’s body and holds himself above her.

Alex wraps her arms and legs around him, crushing him to her. She reaches between them and grasps at his cock, giving it a brief squeeze before lining him up with her entrance.

Strand ducks his head. His breath ghosts the shell of her ear. “You’re sure?”

“Richard, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to scream.”

He thrusts into her before she can even finish her sentence. 

Alex gasps and grips at his shoulders, holding on as he snaps his hips, quick and sharp, lighting up each of her nerves as he hits her at just the right angle.

“Fuck,” she moans, her climax building. Her nails dig into his skin. “Fuck, fuck.”

Strand nips at her shoulder, soothing the hurt with swipes of his tongue.

Her orgasm slams into her, crashing over her, dragging her under in its wake. She cries out, muffling her own screams beneath her hand when she remembers the neighbors on either side of her suite.

Strand groans and slips out of her. He holds himself over her with one hand while taking himself in his other. He pumps his cock until his breath hitches and he spills over his hand onto her stomach.

He falls to the side, breathing hard. 

“You okay?” Alex asks. She smiles and brushes a sweat-soaked hair from his face.

Strand laughs. He pushes himself up with obvious reluctance and disappears into the bathroom. 

He returns with a warm, wet washcloth. He dabs the sweat from her temples. He draws it over the swell of each of her breasts, her nipples sensitive in the cool air of the hotel room. He continues downward to clean the pool rapidly cooling on her belly.

He rises, but Alex grasps at his wrist before he can pull away. She tugs at his arm, requesting without words he stay.

The washcloth disappears over the side of the bed. 

Strand climbs into bed beside her.

 

Alex releases the brakes as the light turns green. She presses down the accelerator.

In the passenger’s seat sits Strand, his hands clenched into his fists in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

Strand turns his head to look at her. “For what?”

“I came at you with the Bobby Maimes thing in the worst way possible. I treated it as an ‘ah-ha’ moment. As the same kind of salacious entertainment you’ve accused me of turning your life into before.”

“It was for your show,” he says.

“It was,” she says. “But I could have handled it better. It obviously still bothers you. And, I mean, it should, right? You were a teenager when you found the body of a little kid. You were the prime suspect, for a while. What I’m saying is, I could’ve approached the subject with a little more tact. And I’m sorry.”

“I—thank you.”

Alex smiles. She reaches out and squeezes his leg, just above his knee.

His hand darts out to cover hers.

Alex turns her hand to lace their fingers together.

 

Strand lingers at the bar, his fingers tracing the crystal decanter of whiskey just before he pours two glasses. He drinks his whiskey neat. For Alex, he adds a splash of soda water.

Their fingers brush when he offers her the drink. Alex smiles and takes it, tucking it to her between two hands as if the liquid inside could warm her fingers.

Strand falls heavily into the armchair. He knocks back almost the entire glass of amber liquid without even a wince.

“That bad, huh?”

The joke falls flat.

Alex sighs. “Sorry, I—I just don’t know what to say.”

Twelve hours ago, Alex and Strand were on their way to meet Thomas Warren. Twelve hours ago, Coralee Strand rescued them from a team of armed thugs. Twelve hours ago, Strand learned his entire life until that moment had been a lie. What can she possibly say after something like that?

Strand shakes his head. He takes a more conservative sip. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“I can leave, if you want. Let you lick your wounds in peace.”

“No. Stay. Please.”

A clock ticks from somewhere inside the house. Alex swirls the liquid in her glass and takes a tentative sip. Dark liquors aren’t usually her thing, but it seems fitting, somehow. They aren’t drinking to celebrate, but to mourn.

Strand finishes off his glass and shoves himself out of the armchair. He moves toward the bar, throwing over his shoulder, “Would you like another?”

Alex holds up her glass, showing him how little she’s had from the first.

He pours himself a healthy measure and downs it before refilling it.

“Hey,” Alex says. “Come here.”

He rounds the sofa and sits down beside her. Alex takes the glass from his hand and sets it on the table, out of his reach.

Alex opens her arms in invitation.

Strand shifts, allowing himself to be held.

Alex runs her fingers through his hair. She kisses his temple.

Strand looks up. His hand cups her face. He leans in for a kiss, his breath tangy with whiskey. His lips press against hers, alcohol warm.

Alex pushes him away before the kiss can turn too heated. Hurt swirls in overbright eyes. He tries to extricate himself from her embrace, but Alex stops him before he can go too far.

“You’re drunk. And you just found out—well, it’s been kind of day. I know it hurts, but tumbling into bed with me isn’t going to hep.”

Strand nods. He swallows and tucks himself against her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She resumes running her fingers through his hair. After a minute ticks by, Alex talks. She talks about the early stages of their investigation, about their initial missteps. His breath hitches with laughter when she describes her frustration with him after he took apart her definitive proof of haunting with such ease and again when she teases him for his awkwardness around her hike with Tannis Braun.

He joins in, his voice low and soft, almost lost in the fabric of her shirt. 

They talk long into the night, until Strand nods off against her. Alex kisses the top of his head and allows her own heavy lids to fall closed.

 

Strand disappears again, with only a text to explain he’s gone to Italy to visit with his daughter. He doesn’t say when he plans to return, only promises he will, eventually.

Three weeks go by without a word.

Alex finds herself picking up her phone, half-expecting to hear the worst after his sudden departure. But nothing comes.

No news is supposed to be good news, isn’t it?

Except Alex can’t sit back and wait for news—she’s a reporter. It’s her job to dig up information herself.

One night, lying in bed, Alex types out two words.

_You okay?_

No answer. Disappointment fills her, but what did she really expect? She slips her charger into her phone and places it on the nightstand.

Her insomnia isn’t much better than it’s been in the past, compounded by her worry for Strand and the alleged apocalypse on the horizon. She lies awake with no real hope of sleep.

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Alex pushes herself up, grabbing for her phone. The text is short, only a single word, but the relief that courses through her makes her toes curl.

_Yes._

As much as she wants to press for more, Alex forces herself to put her phone down. She rolls over, hiking her comforter over her shoulders, leaving only her head exposed. She smiles and closes her eyes.

It becomes not a nightly ritual, but Alex makes sure to text him once a week. Always before bed. Sometimes she gets an answer right away. Others, she doesn’t get a chance to read the reply until morning. But he alway answers. Always with the same word.

_Yes._

It doesn’t alleviate all of her worry. Nor does it lessen her curiosity. But for two months it’s enough.

She makes an evening of it. She takes a long bath with a glass of white wine and a book. She dries her hair and rubs lotion into her skin before slipping into a comfortable pair of sweats and a thin tank top. She takes her time turning down her comforter, climbing between cool sheets. She checks her email, putting off the moment for as long as she can stand it.

Alex types the same question she’s asked for the last eight weeks. _You okay?_

She reaches to place her phone on the bedside table, only to spot movement on her screen. Three bouncing dots, indicating an incoming message.

It’s the first time the response has been immediate.

Alex holds the phone in front of her, her knuckles white with anticipation.

_I miss you._

Alex blinks, her heart beating hard in her chest. Carefully, she taps at the screen, hovering over the send button before she closes her eyes and presses it.

_I miss you, too_.

 

They sit together on the floor of Strand’s father’s house. Boxes, books, and stacks of loose paper surround them. On the television, the last frame of the last Black Tape remains frozen.

“That was...terrible,” Alex says.

Strand shakes his head. “There are more like it.” He points across the room. “In that box, I think.”

Alex makes no move toward the box. It will be weeks before she can get the image of the red-eyed creature from the Tape scrubbed from her mind. The last thing she needs is more fuel for her nightmares.

Strand reaches out a long arm to bring another box of Tapes into their nest of research. 

Alex places her hand on his bicep. “Can we take a break? Please?”

Strand looks at her, his blue eyes missing none of the tension in her muscles nor the fear crawling up and down her spine. “I’ll make tea.”

He groans when he stands, holding onto a nearby chair for balance. He walks barefoot over hardwood, the planks echoing the creak of his bones.

He returned from Italy with the same lack of fanfare he left with. Predictably, he refuses to speak about his time with his daughter. Either due to their continued awkward relationship or to keep Charlie’s name off of Alex’s podcast. Whatever the reason, Alex doesn’t push.

They haven’t mentioned the text, either.

The thought of it, the screenshot she took of it for safekeeping, sends something fluttering behind her heart. The question nags at her, making her ache for an answer, but it scares her, as well.

What could it mean?

Strand pads across the room.

Her phone lies in her palm, the screen open to the image of their past conversation. When did that happen? 

Alex shoves it under her leg, folded criss-cross beneath her, before Strand can catch a glimpse of it.

He bends to place the tea in her awaiting hands. She breathes in the steam while Strand situates himself with his own mug. 

“Let me know when you’re ready,” he says.

Alex blanches over the rim of her mug. “We’ve been working non-stop since you got back. Can we—can we just sit? For a minute?”

“We still have quite a lot of Tapes to go through.”

“I know. I’m not saying we stop. Just—one minute.”

Strand nods.

Alex lets herself take him in. He’s filled out a little in his absence, his sweatpants no longer threatening to fall from his hips. His skin has lost the grey pallor of a man neither sleeping nor eating, though the purple circles traced under his eyes remain. He trimmed his hair in the time since she last saw him. Nothing but the shadow of a beard frames his jaw, instead of the full beard he wore when she first found him in the disaster of his office.

Compared to a year earlier, Strand no longer resembles a person on the edge of unraveling. The gleam in his eyes shines not manic, but driven.

“Your vacation seems to have done you some good,” Alex says.

“It wasn’t—“ He shakes his head with a breath of laughter. “Thank you. I had time to...reprioritize.”

Her stomach sinks before she has time to rationalize his words. Could he mean the text? Could he mean _her_? And their—whatever this is between them? Their connection?

“Good,” Alex says, peering into her tea. “That’s—that’s good.”

“And you?” Strand asks.

“Huh?”

“I, ah, trust you have been well. In my time away.”

“Yeah. I mean, besides all of our research disappearing into some kind of abyss, all of the bodies we’ve wracked up since we began this investigation, and the looming threat of cultists who want to start the apocalypse.”

“Alex,” Strand says, his lips turned down in a frown.

She laughs, with no real humor. “Sorry. I guess I’m in a weird mood. Tired, I guess.”

Exhausted, really. But how is that new?

Alex sips her tea, the clock ticking in the other room unusually loud as it counts out the seconds of silence.

“Charlie brought me to some of her favorite places in Italy,” he says. His fingers trace the rim of his mug, his expression subtle shades of guarded. “Sightseeing. Would you like to see the photos?”

The unexpected question—the unexpected opening up—knocks her out of her funk. “Photos?”

“On my phone,” he says.

She shifts closer to him, uncaring of the piles of black plastic VHS cases she knocks about as she does so. “I didn’t take you for much of a photographer.”

Strand lifts one hip to pull his phone from his back pocket. His lips turn up in a semblance of the wry smile she’s come to call his. “You’ve seen some of my work already.”

Alex’s brows draw downward. “I have?”

He gestures to file folders and the VHS tapes. “Taking photographs is an important aspect of each investigation—if at all possible.”

In the interest of revisiting his Black Tape collection, they haven’t spent much time covering his methods of investigation. The only ‘new’ case Alex has been a part of was to accompany Dr. Emily duMont to the _allegedly_ haunted credit union. Academically, Alex knows he was a major part of each investigation at the Institute, but she never once imagined Strand would be so...hands on. 

It fits, however. Just another small piece of him to fall into place.

“I admit I’m more familiar with a physical camera,” he continues, “but I’m not so old as to be completely incapable of using the camera built into my phone.”

Alex smiles. “I never said you were.”

His smile twitches wider. He leans into her, the line where their shoulders touch warm.

He flips through photograph after photograph. Beautiful architecture, picturesque vistas. A few feature Charlie. In one, she stands with her back to him, her hair glinting in the sunlight as she admires the landscape. In another, she smiles, her hand caught in the middle of brushing her hair out of her face.

“These are all gorgeous,” Alex says.

“I...thought you might like them.”

Alex glances from the phone, catching the guarded look as it returns to his bright blue eyes. “You took these for me?”

“I regret you were not there with me. I would have liked—“ He cuts himself off. The phone goes dark in his hand.

Alex bites at her bottom lip, once again fighting the fluttering behind her heart. “I would have liked that, too.”

He leans in. Or perhaps she does. It doesn’t matter. Not when their lips slot together, the kiss gentle. Chaste, yet sweet.

 

Strand bursts into the conference room at the Pacific Northwest Stories office, his eyes wild, his body crackling with barely contained emotion. “Alex. I need to talk to Alex.”

Alex stands, upsetting her travel mug. Coffee sloshes over the table. Several interns rush to pull notebooks and laptop computers away from the spill while others run out of the room in search of towels.

“Richard—er, Dr. Strand? What’s wrong?”

“My father,” he says. His face drains of color. He swallows like he’s holding back sick. “My father. He—“

Alex takes his arm. With one last look at her executive producers, both who nod for her to deal with the situation, Alex tugs him out of the room. She walks him to her office, one hand on the small of his back to keep him steady.

Alex closes and locks the door to her office. She sits him down in the chair in the corner and kneels beside him. “What happened? What about your father?”

Strand shakes his head. He looks down, where he grips so tight to his phone the case creaks a warning. His hands tremble when he swipes at the screen to unlock it. Without a word, Strand shoves the phone at her.

Alex takes it. The screen shows the recent call log, a voicemail left by an unknown caller not an hour prior. “You want me to play it?”

He nods.

A male voice fills the room. A voice unfamiliar to Alex, but one that causes Strand’s jaw to lock up.

“He’s alive?” Alex asks, once the voicemail goes silent. “He and Coralee are—?”

“Yes,” Strand says. “Alex. I—I have to—Please, I need—“

He stops, eyes wide, hand pulling at the collar of his shirt, unable to get more than a few words out at a time. 

Alex rubs his shoulder. “Hey. Breathe, okay? You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I don’t—I don’t have time. I have to—” He gasps, ragged, desperate, like a man drowning.

“Stop, stop. You don’t have to do anything right now but breathe. _Breathe_.”

Alex takes a deep breath, encouraging him to do the same. She takes another. And another. Until Strand slumps in the chair, drained of everything.

“Better?” Alex asks. She winces. “I mean, not better-better, but you know, _better_.”

Strand nods.

“Do you want some tea?” Now the worst of his panic has passed, Alex aches for something to do to ease her own nerves. “Sit here, I’ll go make some tea.” 

She turns to leave, but Strand’s hand catches her wrist. “Not yet. Please.” 

“Okay,” Alex says. She rounds the chair to stand behind him. Her arms circle the broad set of his shoulders. Her chin sits in the well between his neck and shoulder.

Strand squeezes her arm. “I’m...frightened. Of what this may mean.”

“Me too,” Alex says.

Neither offers the other words of comfort. Neither can promise the outcome of this new obstacle.

And Alex thought thwarting a supposed demonic apocalypse was already bad enough. 

 

This moment could be the last they share together. The dinner, the wine, the slow rocking of her headboard against the wall of her bedroom. Another moment stolen on the eve of Strand’s decision.

Alex closes her eyes, willing herself to sleep. The journey tomorrow will be long and arduous, no matter which plane he chooses.

In the end, Richard Strand—skeptic, enigma, the hurricane of misfortune she’ fallen in love with—will guide her down a path from which neither of them may return.

And what reporter in her right mind could turn down a lead like that?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super excited to share this fic with all of you. I've been working on it since the last episode dropped, in bits and pieces, and finally it's done. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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